How You Remind Me
by manga
Summary: This is a story of Vegeta, Bulma, Trunks, and their relationship as a family, but `family` is a new concept for Vegeta. How is he handling it?


How You Remind Me  
by manga, the Awesome One in pigtails 

_Never made it as a wise man  
I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing  
Tired of living like a blind man  
I'm sick of sight without a sense of feeling  
And this is how you remind me  
This is how you remind me  
Of what I really am  
This is how you remind me  
Of what I really am  
_

What made this argument any worse than any of the others they'd had? Bulma was screaming at him as she had done many times before, yet now her words seemed harsher and her voice was volcanic. Vegeta felt like he'd been detached from himself; he heard the horrible things he was saying and felt the fury and pain that prompted them, but it was as though there were a sheet of glass between what he was thinking and what he was doing. He didn't want to be saying those things to Bulma, hadn't they been through enough with Majin Buu last year? Nothing he could do seemed to stop it, though. The life he'd lived until 10 years ago had made it easy to spit out insults but words of peace were a foreign language he'd just begun to learn. He needed time to string them together. Time he wasn't getting because he and Bulma had been together long enough to push each other's buttons; now their argument had become a viciously escalating cycle. They were both enraged beyond control. 

Then he hit her. 

He didn't know why. She hadn't said anything that she hadn't said before. He was simply, suddenly overwhelmed with a need to MAKE HER SHUT UP. Before he'd even realized what he was planning, he'd done it. 

He hit her. 

Just like that. His hand lashed out and she was sent stumbling across the room. She fell across the couch and sat there, curled up with her hands covering her head. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she screeched, now obviously terrified and trying to placate him before he did anything else. She needn't have worried; he hadn't moved. 

He stared at her, feeling a tearing in his heart. The anger had turned into ashes that made him feel sick to his stomach. Until now, Bulma had been the only person in his life that he had never raised a hand to. It had seemed a bit strange to him, but he'd been secretly proud of it. 

Now he had destroyed that as easily as Freeza had destroyed Vegeta-sei. He had to leave. His eyes burning too much to notice Trunks sitting on the stairs, Vegeta spun around and fled the house, slamming the door behind him so hard the building rattled. 

_It's not like you to say sorry  
I was waiting on a different story  
This time I'm mistaken  
for handing you a heart worth breaking  
and I've been wrong, I've been down,  
to the bottom of every bottle  
these five words in my head  
scream "are we having fun yet?" _

yet, yet, yet, no, no yet, yet, yet, no, no 

He'd never liked not feeling in control and anyway, Freeza's Army being what it was, had always preferred to be on edge at all times. Consequently, he'd never gotten drunk. 

Correction. He'd never BEFORE gotten drunk. Tonight, he was bent on getting plastered. 

After he'd left the house he had wandered around blindly. Part of him wanted to blast into the sky and fly as far away as he could get, but to his exhausted surprise a much larger part of him was reluctant to leave his family. 

Family. Ha. The incident with Buu had changed nothing after all. He'd thought - he'd hoped - he'd given all that crap up for them. He thought he'd found somewhere worth staying and people worth staying with. If it came down to that, he had. It was just that, well, you could take the Prince out of Freeza's Army, but you couldn't take the Army out of the Prince. 

Vegeta started to curse, but nothing he knew expressed the depths of anger, self-disgust and despair he was feeling. He kicked at a nearby rock and watched as it sailed up over the park he was walking through and broke a window in one of the local office buildings. That having done nothing for his mood, he shoved his hands in his pockets and went in search for large amounts of alcohol. If ever there was night he wanted to be insensate, this was it. 

_It's not like you didn't know that  
I said I love you and I swear I still do  
And it must have been so bad  
'Cause living with me must have damn near killed you _

And this is how, you remind me  
Of what I really am  
This is how, you remind me  
Of what I really am  


"Mom?" Trunks peered around the corner of his mother's office door carefully, ready to pull back and run if she threw something at him. Not that she'd ever thrown anything that would hurt him-- that she reserved for Dad-- but tonight, who knew? His nine year old world had been severely shaken. His father, whom he idolized, had hit his mother. Then he'd left. And his mother, who would normally have been in a state of molten fury and should have chased Vegeta down if only to finish the fight- she'd been icy and remote all day. Poor Trunks didn't know who he was more worried about. "Mom?" he tried again, ashamed of the tears in his voice. 

There was a sigh from Bulma's desk. "Come here, Trunks-baby," she said softly. Trunks flung himself into her arms and despite his best efforts started bawling. "There, there," Bulma said soothingly, stroking his head and back gently. Trunks looked up to find her eyes full of tears as well. He threw his arms around her neck and hugged her tightly. 

"What happened?" he asked through a choked throat. She sighed. 

"I don't know, baby." 

"But Dad--" 

"I know," she cut him off, not wanting to hear him say it. 

Trunks wailed. "But I don't understand! Why?!" 

Bulma hugged her son tightly to her, glad to have his pain to focus on if only because that meant she could ignore hers for awhile. "I don't understand, either." 

"I should go find him and beat him up!" 

"No, you shouldn't." 

Trunks pulled back and stared at her incredulously. "But he hit you! If I hit you I'd be grounded for life, and that's just what YOU would do! DAD would whip me within an inch of my life!" 

A small smile graced her face at Trunk's exclamation. He was right, even about Vegeta's reaction. That was what made today so painful and confusing. "I need to talk to your dad." She kissed him on the head and gently pushed him out of her lap so that she could stand. 

"Can't you tell me anything?" he pleaded. 

Bulma crouched down in front of him, gazing at him seriously. "He loves us, but living in a family isn't something that comes easily to him." 

Trunks was quiet, digesting his mother's words. Then he spoke up quietly. "Mom?" 

"Yes baby?" 

"Can we help him learn?" 

Bulma smiled sadly. "I hope so. But whatever happens," she gave him another hug, "we both love you." 

"Good luck, Mom!" Trunks called after her as she walked out of the Capsule Corporation's door. 

"Thank you!" she called back. "Now you go stay with Grandma and Grandpa, okay baby?" 

"I'm not a baby!" 

"Just do it!" 

"Yes, ma'am." 

Bulma smiled until she saw the door close, then let it fade. She was glad that Trunks was feeling better, but she wasn't as confident as she'd pretended that she'd be able to patch things up with Vegeta. She wasn't even sure she should. Yes, they'd been together for 10 years and this was the only time he'd ever struck her, but if this was only the beginning... well, she wasn't going to live with an abuser and she certainly wasn't going to let her son grow up with one as his role model. 

First, however, she was going to have to find him. The sun was setting and lights were coming on all over the city. Bulma looked out and set her jaw with determination. "All right," she muttered, "I'm an angry, upset, Saiya-jin idiot who has just hit his wife. Where do I go?" 

_It's not like you to say sorry  
I was waiting on a different story  
This time I'm mistaken  
for handing you a heart worth breaking  
and I've been wrong, I've been down,  
to the bottom of every bottle  
these five words in my head  
scream "are we having fun yet?" _

yet, yet, yet, no, no yet, yet, yet, no, no yet, yet, yet, no, no yet, yet, yet, no, no 

The whisky might not have been the best decision, Vegeta decided. Instead of numbing his raw emotions, it had made them sharper. He felt unutterably depressed and cut to ribbons. Not exactly a fun combination. On the upside, since he had little tolerance for the stuff, he hadn't had to waste much money on it. Coming over a rise in the park he was walking through (the same park he'd been in before) his attention was drawn to the sky. Then he stepped on a skateboard some kid had accidentally left behind and fell flat on his back. With the breath knocked out of him, he lay there staring dazedly at the stars. 

_"Are we having fun yet?"_ For a moment it seemed that Freeza's voice, lazy, bored and malicious, was whispering in his ear. He knew it was only a trick of his mind but that didn't stop him. "Shut the hell up you sick bastard!" he snarled. 

"Vegeta, it's two o'clock in the morning! Where the hell have you been?!" 

He shot to his feet and spun to face Bulma. 

"Well?" she demanded, tapping her foot impatiently. "I'm waiting for an answer. Do you KNOW how long I've been looking for you?" 

"What, and you've only found me just now?" Maybe it was because of the whisky, but the quip didn't sound as sarcastic as he would've liked. Or maybe it wasn't the whisky. Vegeta couldn't help the cutting upwelling of hope he felt. 

Bulma looked at the man that was her husband and had to admit that he looked pretty wrecked. His body language had gone schizophrenic, switching from indifferent to practically vibrating with hope and back again. "Well, if you want I can just turn around and go home without you," she said, suiting action to words. From the corner of her eye she saw a flash of movement from him. She turned back to face him again and saw that he'd taken a step toward her. He didn't say anything, but the expression she saw on his face before he realized she was looking answered her clearly enough. No. 

Suddenly, it didn't matter so much that he had hit her. She'd been in agony since the fight and a lot of it had been the anger and betrayal she had felt, but now she realized how much of it had been because she loved him. She missed him. She hated the dizzying, sickening feeling of loving him and hating him at the same time. "Vegeta," she said tiredly. "I am not going to spend my life chasing after you. If I mean anything to you, you will keep walking." 

It was hard for him to make that next step, she could see. Each step after that was a little easier though. Seeing him come at her like that, every step more assured than the last, she let her own pride go and met him part way. 

They stood in front of each other for a bit, just drinking in the sight. After a moment, Vegeta carefully raised his hand to her cheek and brushed the bruise he had made. "Are you okay?" he asked hoarsely. He wanted to apologize, but everything he thought of sounded weak and inadequate. 

"I'll live," she responded wryly. "You know, an apology wouldn't kill you." 

He was silent for a long time and didn't look at her. She was just getting really upset when he raised his head. Looking straight into her eyes and taking a big breath he said, "I didn't mean for this to happen." 

"Yes well you didn't mean NOT for it to happen, either," she broke in. 

"Will you shut up and let me talk already?!" 

She smiled, feeling that they were getting back on normal footing already. He glared at her for a moment then continued. 

"I know it'll take a while for you to trust me again, and I assume there's a lot of talking for us to do--" 

"You bet there is, buddy!" 

"--but can't I just kiss you now?" 

Caught flatfooted, she gaped at him. He was gazing at her levelly, obviously trying to appear in control, but she wasn't fooled. 

"Are you going to answer me? Or just sit there doing that charming impression of a fish?" he asked testily, his feet shifting nervously. 

With a sudden dazzling smile, she threw herself at him, knocking them both over and smothering him with kisses. Then they were kissing each other, dizzy with relief and drunk on each other's proximity and not saying anything for a while. 

"How much did you drink, anyway?" she asked later snuggled up against him and idly playing with one of the buttons on his shirt. 

"Only two glasses of whisky," he said defensively. 

She propped her head up on one hand and smiled down at him. "Well, if getting you tipsy results in such romantic flights of speech, I'll have to get you drunk more often!" 

He glared at her. "Shut up." 

"Ah, we're back to the rough, tough, 'don't give me no guff' Vegeta that I know. Pity." He glared at her more. She chuckled and kissed him on the nose. "Let's go home." 

So they did, walking together and holding hands. Since it was three a.m. and there wasn't anyone to see anyway, Vegeta tried not to be mortified. 

_Never made it as a wise man  
I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing  
And this is how you remind me  
This is how you remind me  
This is how you remind me  
Of what I really am  
This is how you remind me  
Of what I really am  
_

When they got home, they found Trunks asleep on the couch. He was almost hidden under the pile of blankets he'd brought down and he was holding Taddy his stuffed dinosaur. 

"I thought he'd gotten rid of that thing," Vegeta grumbled. 

Bulma smoothed Trunks' hair back and smiled down at him. "Give it a rest, Vegeta," she said. "He's still a kid and he's had a rough day. Help me get him to bed, will you?" 

While Bulma gathered the blankets, Vegeta reached down and carefully scooped up his son. It was awkward at first, this wasn't exactly something he had a lot of practice with, but he soon worked out that if he kind of draped the kid against his chest and let Trunks' head rest against his shoulder then he could hold him easily. Trunks woke up a bit, but seeing his parents, drifted back to sleep. 

Bulma grinned at the picture they made. "Aww, you're so cute. Wish I had a camera." 

"You take a picture of this and I kill you." 

"Come on, 'Dad'. Let's get our little fighter to bed then you can be MY teddy bear. I've had a rough day too, you know." She winked at him. 

Shaking his head incredulously, he followed her up the stairs. At the top of the stairs he stopped for a moment, watching Bulma walking ahead of him; then he glanced down at Trunks and smiled before following his wife into the bedroom. 

_THIS is how you remind me  
Of what I really am  
_

* * *

Song by Nickleback, emphasis added.  
A portion of Vegeta's speech was borrowed from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Donuts to you if you can figure out which bit! :) 


End file.
